Garamendi Ups Pressure on Brown : Politics: He uses a state Democratic Party dinner to attack her qualifications for governor. Observers say it could mark the start of a bruising primary battle.

An early blooming contest for the 1994 Democratic nomination for governor erupted into midseason form this week as Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi sharply challenged state Treasurer Kathleen Brown’s gubernatorial leadership qualifications.

The attack raised the prospect of a long and bitter Democratic primary fight for the right to challenge the reelection of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson--the sort of battle many Brown supporters fear could spoil her prospects of unseating Wilson.

Garamendi stunned a state Democratic Party dinner audience Wednesday when--with Brown sitting nearby--he accused her of following opinion polls in deciding to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement and of being dishonest in opposing the death penalty but willing to enforce it as governor.

“It’s time for this state to have some stand-up leadership,” Garamendi told about 500 people at the Biltmore Hotel, adding that he supports capital punishment even though that was not a popular position with many in the audience.

“The next governor cannot tack to the political winds of the moment or flip-flop or wait to see which way the voters are moving, and then hurry to catch up,” he added.

As for Brown’s position on the death penalty, Garamendi said: “That does not sell, nor is it honest.”

Brown had addressed the Biltmore Hotel audience a few minutes earlier, delivering the sort of routine tribute to the guest of honor, Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. (D-San Francisco), expected at such affairs.

Brown did not respond to Garamendi on Thursday. In fact, she spent part of the day attacking Wilson for not yet taking a position on the school voucher initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot. Brown opposes the voucher measure.

But campaign aide Roy Behr defended Brown’s position on the death penalty as being the same as that of her father, former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., and of U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. Behr also said Garamendi had taken varying positions over the years on abortion rights and gay rights.

The audience of mostly party regulars listened in cold silence as Garamendi, after first criticizing Wilson’s leadership, said: “I know many in the political Establishment have decided that my primary opponent (Brown) is supposed to be governor, but in California that choice should, and does, belong to the people.”

Garamendi in effect chose the outsider’s role in challenging Brown, much as Dianne Feinstein did against then-state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, the favorite of party regulars in the 1990 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

In that race, Feinstein was booed by a hostile Democratic State Convention audience when she said she supported capital punishment. Feinstein resoundingly defeated Van de Kamp in June but narrowly lost to Wilson in November.

No one booed Garamendi on Wednesday night, but one dinner official said: “People were sort of stunned, uncomfortable and uneasy.”

For months, Brown has held a lead in public opinion polls and in campaign fund raising over both Garamendi and Wilson. Brown enthusiasts see her as an odds-on favorite over Wilson in November, 1994, if she did not have to face the possibly divisive and draining rigors of a Democratic nomination battle.

They treat Garamendi as an ambitious spoilsport who jeopardized Democratic prospects for winning back the governorship for the first time since Brown’s brother, Jerry, left office in 1983.

Garamendi is a 16-year veteran of the state Legislature and the first elected insurance commissioner.

Darry Sragow, Garamendi’s campaign manager, said the contest is getting under way earlier than normal in part because Brown began early fund raising and endorsement-gathering in an attempt to keep other Democrats out of the race.

The Garamendi challenge came on the same day that Brown opened a new phase of her campaign, delivering a widely promoted, detailed speech on immigration in Los Angeles. In recent weeks, some of her backers had expressed concern that she was attempting to campaign as the presumed nominee without discussing in detail the issues likely to dominate the 1994 election.

State Party Chairman Bill Press, the master of ceremonies at the dinner, said Thursday that a tough Democratic primary fight would not necessarily make it more difficult for either Brown or Garamendi to unseat Wilson next year.

“We’ve got two outstanding candidates,” he said in an interview. “Either one of them would beat Pete Wilson. It’s up to them how they run their campaigns.”